The first two months of 2020 generally were unremarkable.
Then March came, and everything changed.
It began in Northeast Florida the evening of March 12, when the PGA Tour canceled the final three rounds of The Players golf tournament because having thousands of spectators on the course wouldn’t allow for “social distancing” as COVID-19 began to spread.
The next week, emergency orders took effect on the state and local levels that shut down business as we knew it. Nonessential retail, restaurants and bars, hotels and public buildings and entertainment venues were closed to slow the spread of the virus.
That led to widespread unemployment in Northeast Florida, rising from 4.3% in March to 11.2% in April.
Major retailers with a local presence declared bankruptcy as the pandemic stymied any attempt at survival. Some Jacksonville-based employers permanently reduced their workforces.
People with access to technology began working from home, many with reduced paychecks and hours as their employers scrambled to adapt to the pandemic economy.
With schools closed, education from elementary through college also went online. Parents had to juggle working at home and home-schooling their children.
Hospitals braced for an anticipated flood of COVID-19 patients who would need critical care, although those numbers didn’t materialize to the degree feared.
Then on May 25, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died in the custody of a white police officer in Minneapolis.
That set off protests nationwide, including in Jacksonville, where a police officer was stabbed by a demonstrator and some buildings Downtown were vandalized.
Northeast Florida also experienced the demolition of The Jacksonville Landing and the Hart Bridge ramps near TIAA Bank Field, the removal of Confederate monuments, and the unexpected selection of Jacksonville as the site of President Donald Trump’s nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in August.
Jacksonville learned June 11 that it had 74 days to prepare for the Aug. 24-27 event at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.
Here’s more perspective: We’re only halfway through 2020.